[tomcorrigan]

You are pretty much totally wrong. Australian banks make much less from interchange fees than their US counterparts. Apple wanted the same fee in Australia as it collects in the US. With interchange fees being smaller in Australia this cut represented a much bigger portion of the total fee. The banks here have also already invested a lot of money and effort in driving contactless payments by issuing all cards with the technology for at least the last few years plus providing the payment terminals. They therefore think Apple is providing less value than in the USA and should thus be entitled to a smaller cut when an Apple Pay transaction happens.

When they banks applied to the competition regulator for permission to collectively bargain with Apple they specifically undertook to negotiate about fees individually. What the banks want to collectively negotiate is access to the NFC hardware on Apple devices so they can provide their own digital wallets and bypass Apple Pay.

[flashman]

Um. Yes. I did actually describe the opposite of what is in the articles didn't I?